NASCAR announced Thursday afternoon their plan to re-fire their engines after a two-month hiatus because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but it is clear that at least for a while the scope of the sport as we previously knew it will change.
The COVID-19 virus has thrown the sport into a standstill but next month, the sport will ease back into a real-life format with a whopping seven races in 11 days between the three national touring series, the NASCAR Cup, Gander RV & Outdoors and Xfinity Series between the tracks of Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR vice president and chief racing development officer reiterated that the sport remains in a “fluid situation” and “we’re going to need to factor in many, many variables” – but moving forward the sanctioning body appears to have an executed and balanced plan in place to get the sport revving on all eight cylinders.
“I think most important for us at the onset was the development of a plan that was discussed with public health officials, medical experts, state and local officials,” offered O’Donnell.
“Then it was important for us to work with all of our stakeholders, that include the teams, the tracks, OEMs, engine builders, our suppliers, TV partners. All those folks had to weigh in and talk about what was possible in this environment.
“From there we had an internal group of Ben Kennedy, Ben Baker and Scott Miller who led the discussions around the schedule. I think we’re on version 65 right now for the national series, so a lot of changes have come throughout that. But a portion of that you saw today.”
Testing has been the crucial topic of the world and while NASCAR admitted though immediately won’t be able to provide on-site testing in its initial rollout in phase one, the sport will take several measures to ensure the safety of everyone on property.
“We’re asking teams and all of our participants, organizations, to self-monitor people for five days for symptoms before they arrive,” said NASCAR’s vice president of racing operations John Bobo. “We’re asking them to fill out a questionnaire and initial screening for temperature.
“Concerns after that, they will go into secondary screening with medical personnel, which will include heart rate, pulse oxygenation. Medical personnel will make decisions at that point.
“We’ll also go through an additional screening for essential personnel. We’ve been working with the teams on a roster system to make sure the event is limited as to who can attend. If there’s any operations we can move off-site, that’s what we’re trying to do to limit the event.”
Bobo also mentioned that actions will not only be taken before the actual event but throughout the race event and even as teams plan to leave the premises.
“Temperatures will be taken randomly throughout the event of people as needed,” he added. “Symptomatic patients will be processed and removed from the event and given medical attention if needed. We’ll be doing that outside the infield care center to protect the integrity of the infield care center for emergency operations during the race.
“Post race we’re going to stagger people’s exits. We’ll be looking at temperature and other factors as they leave. We’re also requiring all the teams to disinfect as needed and we’ll even seal haulers and things like that to make sure as they go to the next event they’re safe.
“I want to talk about testing because I think it may be a question that comes up on COVID 19 testing, those tests remain in short supply. Getting results can take two to three days. Really those tests should be targeted for people most in need.”
And for the foreseeable future, NASCAR plans to keep the races within a driving distance, although an exact perimeter hasn’t been determined.
“I would say outside of the first four Cup events, I’ll just speak to Cup right now, the goal for us is the next I’d say three events we would like to be drivable as well,” added O’Donnell.
“Once you get beyond that we do have states that have said, Hey, we’re good to go racing. But our goal was to get at least seven or so events under our belt, drivable, learn as we go, not have to put people on planes if we could avoid that.
“Once we get beyond those, I think you’ll see us move in. I keep using the word ‘fluid’, but it is. Once you get beyond those seven events we feel like we’ll be ready to continue to look at races where we may be able to travel.”
With the plan to still maintain the Labor Day Cup Playoff opener in September at Darlington, running multiple Cup races at the historic South Carolina race track and even an added 500k Charlotte race means that races already locked onto 2020 will likely not happen.
NASCAR knows which tracks won’t host a race this season but wasn’t quite ready to make those announcements citing proper communication is still needed.
“Those decisions have been made,” said O’Donnell. “We’re not ready to announce those. “That’s not to hide the ball. That is to make sure that we can have proper communication not only with those tracks and the personnel, which I’m sure you can appreciate, but we have a lot of fans in those areas.
For the couple tracks where we need to move an event, we want to do that in the right way. We will certainly disclose that to the media, the race teams and the fans will know ahead of time before we get to Darlington. We just want to take a little time here before we’re able to announce that.”
And while the NASCAR Cup Series will likely see fewer races altered this season as far as venues are concerned, the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and Xfinity Series could see other race tracks vanish on the schedule in lieu of replacement venues who are able to host the series given the health circumstances.
“We have looked at those events, there will be a few more that will be realigned, than you’ll see in Cup,” added O’Donnell. “In Cup, you’ll probably see three races we had to realign. A few more will take place on Xfinity and Truck. The intent is we’ll run all points races, the same number we put out at the beginning of the year.”
While the pandemic has thrown the NASCAR schedules into a blender, O’Donnell made it clear – that at least for now, the plan is for the Playoff format and schedule, particularly in Cup remains the same beginning with Darlington and ending the second week of November at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
“As of today we expect the Playoff calendar to stay intact on the Cup side where we had it ending at the beginning of the year,” he said. “Again, that could change if some things happen, but that is our intent right now.”
And while the landscape will look different with no races with fans in the stands to cheer or boo their favorite drivers for weeks, perhaps months to come, NASCAR seems committed on unveiling a productive and competitive schedule while keeping the best interest of safety front and center between now and the end of the 2020 season.
“Purely on the schedule, we feel like we have a schedule mapped out for all three series that gets us through Phoenix,” explained O’Donnell. “We feel like it’s pretty well baked. We feel like we’ve had the right cadence with where states are, where health officials may be. Certainly, we have backups to backups to backups.
“I would say we started about seven pencils and a lot of erasers and have moved to pen now in terms of saying to our broadcast partners and tracks that this is what we believe we can collectively do. The industry is there, as well.
“But until we are racing and until we see how things take place until we see how this virus affects things down the road, we can’t say for sure.
“I do feel confident as an industry we have a schedule that we feel like we can pull off and we can pull off in a good way for the fans.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
